Jesus Paid for Your Freedom: So Why Do You Feel Stuck?

Now, this is what freedom in Christ looks like. You get him for eternity. - Yeah. - And you're not forever separated from that. - Yes. (upbeat music) - Hello there. You're listening to The Girl Talk Podcast. My name is Carol. - I'm Kelly. - My name is Trisha. - Freedom in Christ. - It sounds like a wonderful thing. I would think we would all want freedom in Christ, but what is it? What does it mean? And how do you get there? So let's talk about it, girls. Freedom from what? - It's so funny because we use phrases and words all the time we kind of have a working knowledge of what they mean, but if you take a step back, it's like, what exactly? Are we talking about being free from? I'm glad you brought that up. 'Cause I use that phrase a lot, but like to really dig down, what does it mean? You know, I think one of the things I picture when I think about freedom is the opposite. And that is being in chains. And so for me, if I'm free in Christ, it means I'm not in chains to something else. And so for me, freedom in Christ means I am no longer enslaved or in chains to my sin. - I'm gonna take that. - I'm not driven by that. - Yeah, I'm gonna take that analogy one step further. And I'm gonna put you in a jail sale. Imagine you're in a jail sale. - Okay. - Gives me claustrophobia. - Right. And imagine someone comes and unlocks the jail sale door and opens it wide and you choose to stay inside the jail sale. When freedom could be yours, all you had to do is walk through you. That's what Jesus did for you and for me. Now, freedom from our sin doesn't mean there won't be consequences. I think this is where the water gets a little muddy sometimes for people because they don't understand, okay, if I'm free in Christ, I thought Jesus paid for that sin on the cross, which he did in full, but how come there are still consequences of my sin? And I think that's where a lot of people say, well, everything's gonna be great whenever you become a Christian. That's actually not the case. Things will probably get harder when you become a Christian because then the devil has something to worry about in you. - Right. - Right. - So I want us to just think about that analogy for a minute as we explore freedom because I think freedom can look different for all of us. Once you get past the freedom from the penalty of your sin, you don't have to pay the debt for your sin, but you do have to sometimes pay for the consequences of your sin, right? So you can be forgiven, but sometimes those consequences linger and you still have to endure the consequences of your sin. Can you unpack that by giving us like an example of a sin and the forgiveness of it, but then also what consequences might be around them? Let's say you hurt a friend, you're in a friendship. Say, Kelly, okay, I'm just gonna use you as an example. Kelly, you and I are in a friendship and I say something really hurtful to you. And that would make me sad, it would make me sad too. And I realize it and I go to God and say, God, would you please forgive me for that sin? He will, yes, in fact, forgive me. Then I need to go to you and say, Kelly, will you forgive me for that sin? Yes. And you would say yes. But there would be a rebuilding of trust that would have to be, we wouldn't be probably at the same place that we were before I heard you. You would be a little cautious, which you should be, right? And so there would be some consequences to my action even though I've been forgiven. Yes, right, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. Also, good example. I was reading this the other day and I hope this will tie in. I hope you understand how I'm making this fit. But I was reading in Psalm 23. Everybody knows Psalm 23, right? Lord is my shepherd, shall I want. Makes me lie down. You've had yours. Please be by beside the sea waters, stores my soul. All the good things, right? There's this verse in there, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil, right? I was looking at that verse in particular. I had never noticed this before. And I got so excited about this. One commentator I read said, "Everything we faced is just a shadow. Jesus faced death on the cross for you. So everything that you face is only a shadow. Can a shadow of a sword kill you? No. Can a shadow of a gun shoot you? Can a shadow of anything hurt you? No. Right? The worst you have to deal with is a shadow. And what do shadows often do? They often make things look bigger than they are. And they scare us. And that's what shadows can scare you. He makes things look bigger than they really are. He makes them look scarier than they really are. But Jesus has already faced death on the cross for all you have to face is the shadow. And when we talk about freedom, that was this week, one of my mic drop moments with my time with the Lord is like, "Oh, I have to face as the shadow." You've already taken the heart. You've done the heavy lifting. You've done the hard work. And all I have to face are these shadows. And that really helped me. That's good. Well, and then think too about how Christ's light of the world and the more light there is the less shadows there are. That's right. And so the more, if like pure light, there's no shadow. You can make a Baptist house, right? When we get to heaven, when we get to be in his presence, all those shadows are gone. Yes. You know, all of that is wiped away and we no longer even have to fight the shadows. Praise the Lord for that. So good. Yeah, thank you, Jesus. I remember a long time ago. I think it was Bethmore. I heard her teaching in a Bible study and she said, "My fear is that some of us still live in prisons that are locked from the inside." And I think that is so true, if you've been a believer or two weeks or 200 years, some of the time we choose the prison. You're not, "Why would I ever choose a prison?" You know what to expect, right? Inside that prison, it may be even a little comfortable. Yeah. It's familiar. It's familiar. That's exactly right. Instead of walking through it. You've reinterested. You've reinterested. You've got to plush couch in there. That's right. That's right. I think one of the prisons that holds a lot of people, and I know that I have felt imprisoned by fear, you know, the prison in your mind, and knowing it's a shadow, knowing that God does not give us the spirit of fear, but still facing fear can feel like a prison that's locked from the inside, even though God has freed me from fear, I still battle it. And so those are hard things to try to parse through, but the truth is, it is just a shadow and it has not been given by God. And so, you know, technically you're free from it, and how do you walk in that? Yeah. And I think, you know, your battle of fear, that you've talked about multiple times, and how you do battle it with Scripture, like the best, the first thing you do is that you are fighting it with the Word of God, you're fighting it with prayer. You are speaking the truth of God's Word over and over, over yourself, over the fear, that that's how we battle back, and that's the freedom we've been given, that we're no longer stuck in that prison cell. We no longer have to stay there. God's given us the tools to get out. He's given us the key. He's given us himself. He's given us the ability to talk to him through the Holy Spirit. He's given us the reminder of Scripture through the Holy Spirit when we hide that in our hearts, and we can speak that Word of God over and over and over and over again, over whatever that thing is, and that it releases us, even if it's momentary, and we go back in from our own habits or our own experiences or our own normal reactions to things, we still have the tools we need to get out. I'm actually really glad you said that, because I think, at least for me, when I think about this and being in a prison, maybe, that's locked from the inside, I feel shame, like, well, I'm just not a good enough Christian to get out of it. But you're right. You're right. There are battles that are ongoing. The Apostle Paul had the Thorn in his flesh, you know, I've been prayed a whole lot about getting rid of anxiety or panic and still have to battle that, but God's given me the power to do it, and I've done it. And so, you don't have to feel like a failure if you are still working through some things, but the Word of God has been so helpful to me. I have made in bed and I have just repeated over and over again. God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, of love, of sound mind. And I say it to myself till I believe it, and the part of the hope of being a Christian is the hope we've been given that one day all of that disappears. One day there is no more battle. There is just God's Word, you know? There is no battling fear with God's Word because we are in His presence. And fear is gone. We are with the God of God's Word. We're with God's shadows. We're more sheds. And they say this world is a shadow of the next. Right. So, you know, okay, there are some shadows here, but there ain't going to be always. That's right. Amen. That's right. That's so good. How do we communicate that freedom to someone else? I was thinking as we were prepared. as I was preparing for this podcast, I was thinking about the time that we got to spend in the Women's Correctional Facility, was that last year, last year, last year? And I just was, I can close my eyes and be back there. Like I remember, it was such a profound moment for me because we had a service there with the gals and they were just, oh, some of the greatest hugs I've ever been given were inside that prison and just talking with the ladies there and hearing their stories, some of them from unbelievable circumstances. And yet, when we started worship, you looked around and their hands were raised and you looked around and they were worshiping and tears were flowing down their face. At the end of the day, we walked through those gates and they closed behind us and those ladies were still there, but we got to leave. And that was so profound to me in that moment of like, God saying, do you understand the freedom you've been given? Like, do you understand, you know? And I just remember on the way home because I was by myself because I had driven there and so I was driving on my way home and I just remember being overcome with the word freedom. Like if we really got that and understood and spent our lives celebrating that freedom, you could not keep people out of our churches and out of our Bible studies and out of our homes because that is so attractive. Attractive. How do you think we do that? How do you think we better understand freedom? Is it appreciating it? Is it taking time to be grateful for it? Yes, yes, and I've prayed this prayer for a long time and before you cast judgment on me, let me explain. I've asked the Lord to never let me forget it what it was like to be lost. It's good. Because I think if we ever forget that, we lose that touch point with people who aren't yet believers. And so I think part of it is really realizing what you've been set free from. For me, God saved me from myself because I wanted to go down so many roads that had I done that. Who knows where I would be today? It would lead to pain and heartache. Sure. Yeah, and I think that's when we look around at the world around us, there's so much of that. There's so much pain, there's so much heartache, there's so much anger, there's so much striving for things. And we've been set free from the need of all of that emotion and we have peace, a peace that, as scripture said, a peace that passes understanding. Like, I don't understand why I'm so peaceful. I don't understand why I have joy. But if I can show that to somebody else and they can see Jesus in me and they can see the fruit of a transformed life that I'm able to then smile in a different way. I'm able to have, make eye contact in a different way that it's more of a compassionate, merciful, grace-filled attitude that's the overflow of my heart. That's gonna be when some to people and people are gonna be like, I won't, whatever it is you got. How did you get that look in your eyes of peace and joy? I want that. Do you think it has something to do with really understanding what eternity will be? Here's what I mean. So I'm terrible to skip ahead in books. I like to read books, but if the main character is going through a hard time and I get anxious, I'm like, I don't need any anxiety right now. I'm skipping two chapters ahead to make sure it all is okay. And I've done that and I'll go to the end of the book to make sure there's still a lot. And then you go back and read it. But it's when I go back, I'm reading it with freedom. Sure. Because I'm like, it's all gonna be okay in the end. It might be tough right here. I did that with demon copperhead a lot. But I know what's coming and it's gonna be good and it's gonna be okay. And so if we skip ahead to the end and we know God's goddess, I mean, he truly has us, but that's important to understand. What does that mean? It means that I've given my life to Christ and because of that, I have an eternity with him that's promised. That's beautiful. And that is what gives me freedom. Yes, I don't want to add to that. I think one of the things we have a tendency as believers to do in skipping to the end is looking at heaven as a place full of music and clouds and fluffy stuff and hell as a place of eternal fire and pain and torture when maybe both of those are true. In reality, we know who God is. We know what his character is and what God says about himself is that he is love. He is peace, he is joy. And if hell is a separation from all of that, I don't mind so much the physical pain of burning. That's not a motivator for me, but the motivator of not ever experiencing any a total void of love and of peace and of joy. Goodness. Revealing goodness is that super motivating to me to want to look at my non-believing friend and going, not do you want to live an eternal damnation, but do you want to never have love and joy and peace and goodness in your life? Because that's, or if for eternity, is that's what you're giving up. Like that's what you're choosing not to have when you choose to not have a relationship with Jesus, you are choosing to for eternity not have love, joy, peace and goodness. And man, that's motivating to me, to want to share this free gift and help people understand. This is what freedom and Christ looks like. You get him for eternity and you're not forever separated from that. - Yes. - So good, so good. Freedom was free, is free for you and me, but it was so costly, it cost Jesus his life on the cross. And here's what I want you to know today that the greatest desire we have for you is not that you'd listen to this podcast, is not even that you would like this podcast. It's that you would know, Jesus. And maybe today you're thinking, I really don't know or understand or believe that I am free in Christ. Would you do me a favor? Would you text just the word Jesus to 81891, just the word Jesus to 81891, here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna connect you with a resource that's gonna lead you through scripture on how you can experience Christ's freedom that was paid for you on the cross. And there's even somebody live there you can chat with if you have further questions about it. And you're like, I don't know, just do it. Just do it right now. Just text Jesus to 81891, make that decision today. Make sure today, if you're even a little bit unsure, then go ahead and text Jesus to 81891. It's a resource that is going to be valuable to you. And if you make a decision to surrender your heart to Christ to truly experience Christ's freedom, we'd love to know about it. We also would love to get you some resources to help you grow in your faith because that's why this whole thing exists. That's why we started doing the Girl Talk podcast. So get in touch with us. Let us know you can email us at [email protected]. You can get in touch on the Facebook pages. We would love to hear from you and celebrate with you your new life in Christ. And don't forget to subscribe to this podcast so that the next time we release a new episode, it'll come straight to your phone and you know what? We love you. And we're going to save you a seat. Next time we gather around these microphones for the next Girl Talk podcast. [MUSIC PLAYING]